


Blue

by nosecrinkle



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Drabble, Gen, Knitting, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 22:06:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15694272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nosecrinkle/pseuds/nosecrinkle
Summary: ”Steve? Do I know how to knit?”





	Blue

The future had made way for a lot of wonderful things. Hobbies, especially. Craft stores were one of Steve's favorite parts of the future.

That and hot water.

And ebook readers.

And –

”Steve? Do I know how to knit?”

Steve looked up. He spotted Bucky on the other side of the store. He hadn't spoken loudly; didn't even raise his voice. He could have whispered, if he had wanted to, and Steve still would have heard him. Speaking to each other across the room, was one of their first shared habits. It drove their friends up the wall.

Bucky was standing infront of a wall of yarn. Steve put down the pack of drawing paper he had been looking at. He really didn't need more, but since he had the money, it was hard to resist. He weaved through the shelves, and stood by Bucky, as he considered the yarn.

”Yeah, Buck. You know how to knit,” he said, smiling softly. ”Your Ma taught you.”

Bucky frowned and made his I-don't-know-if-I-remember-this-right face.

”Do you?”

Steve laughed. ”God, no. I tried real hard, but I never quite got it. You were real good, though.”

Bucky made a low humming sound. He poked a couple of bundles with his fingers, testing the softness. ”What'd I make?”

When Steve didn't reply, Bucky looked at him, still frowning slightly.

Steve was smiling at him. The soft one that said _I missed you. I can't believe you're here._

”Socks, mostly,” Steve replied. ”You talked about making a blanket, but that amount of wool – we couldn't afford it.”

Bucky grunted, and plucked a bundle of yarn out from the cubby it was held in, squeezing it between his fingers. ”I don't remember it being this soft.”

Getting accustomed to smiling all the time had been a sore affair. When Bucky had first come back to Steve, Steve's face and neck hurt from all the smiling. They hadn't been reunited for long, but Steve's muscles were getting used to it. It felt good. Looking in the mirror felt better these days. He was getting lines around his eyes, his lips, from all the smiling. The happiness.

Some days, Steve wasn't quite sure how his body could contain it all.

Steve didn't notice spacing out; not until Bucky rubbed a bundle of yarn against his cheek. The fibers caught on his unshaved cheek. Steve curled his fingers around the yarn and apoligized softly. He spaced out a lot.

It didn't slip by Bucky, of course it didn't. Speaking didn't always bring Steve back, touch was more effective. Bucky would usually touch Steve in some way, until his eyes came back into focus.

Besides, most days speaking was hard for Bucky. But he was getting better.

Steve looked at the small bundle of yarn in his hands. ”You wanna get–” He looked back up, but Bucky wasn't there. He turned around, spotting Bucky at the back end of the store, where the bigger yarn bundles were kept.

Steve shook his head and followed, chuckling quitely. He raised his voice a bit, allowing his voice to carry, ”You wanna get some?”

Bucky was pulling bundles out of a bin, gathering them around his feet. The bin held a mix of colors, but Bucky was clearly looking for something specific.

Steve was about to ask, when Bucky simply said,

”Blue.”

”What?”

”I want blue.”

Steve crouched down next to him. ”What kind of blue?”

In lieu of an answer, Bucky pushed a big bundle to Steve's chest. ”Blue like your eyes.”

”I–” Steve felt his neck heat up. ”Ok. Blue. Sure. Do you need more than one of these?”

Bucky looked at him like he was an idiot. ”You're not 5'4'' anymore. Yes, I need more,” he said, piling more bundles into Steve's arms.

The discarded bundles, were piling up by their feet, strewn across the floor around them, as Bucky hunted for the right ones.

”So it's for me?” Steve asked.

Bucky grunted. He appeared to be running low on words for the day. Satisfied with the amount of bundles in Steve's arms, Bucky gathered the rejects, putting them back in their bin.

Then came the needles.

The selection was vast and unnecessary. Bucky's ma's needles had been wood. The needles she had gifted to Bucky when he moved out had been wood too. Most of the ones infront of them were metal.

  
  


”I'm still not used to all the colors,” Steve remarked. ”Sometimes I feel like all we wore was brown. Before.”

”Girls wore colors,” Bucky said.

Steve pointed at a set of neon colored crochet hooks. ”Not as bright as this.”

Bucky wrinkled his nose. He looked like the colors were offending him.

”Hey, what size do you need?” Steve frowned.

”8 millimeter.”

”How do you know?”

Bucky pointed at the paper band around one of the bundles in Steve's arms. ”Says so right there.”

”Oh,” Steve said. The label was upside down, but it did say so, right there. He looked up at the needles, narrowing down the options. ”How 'bout those? The blue ones?”

Bucky slid the pack off the display hook. Muted blue. Metal. The right size. He made a sound Steve had learned meant approval.

Steve smiled and they went to the till together.

  
  


–

  
  


Bucky had struggled for a total of seven minutes, before he had figured out the instructions on the little pamphlet he'd grabbed at the craft store; it was all muscle memory from there.

Before he figured it out, Steve had suggested looking it up on the internet, maybe finding a video. Bucky didn't like the internet and Steve was cursed out of the room. Steve was still trying to find a way to show Bucky how great the internet was, he just needed the right angle.

TV had been the same way. Bucky had hated it, until Steve introduced him to the world of nature documentaries. Bucky knitted most of the blanket while watching documentaries about outer space. Bucky had cried when he found out about Apollo 11. He cried again when Steve helped him find the International Space Station in the night sky.

Bucky complained a lot in the first few weeks of his project. The muscles in his right hand kept cramping up and he had to put the needles down. Steve was happy to rub his hand whenever that happened.

Bucky was good at it, but the blanket was big. Very big. His estimate had been wrong, and they'd had to go back to the store for more yarn. Twice.

It took Bucky a couple of months to finish it.

After a day of meetings at the Tower, Steve came home to a silent apartment. The apartment hadn't been quiet since Bucky moved in. Most nights, they had the radio on low; most days they had documentaries playing on the TV.

”Buck?” Steve called.

”Living room!”

Steve barely rounded the corner, before he was enveloped. Bucky had hugged him with the blanket.

The finished blanket.

Bucky held him tight for a few moments before peeling the knit away from Steve's grinning face.

”Did you do it?” he asked excitedly. Steve held the blanket in place, when he felt Bucky loosen his grip. ”Buck! This is amazing!”

Bucky was grinning back. ”Do you like it?”

Steve laughed happily and fumbled around for the edges, until he was holding it like a cape. He opened his arms, gesturing for Bucky to hug him again. Bucky wrapped his arms around Steve's neck, as Steve wrapped the blanket around the both of them.

”I love it,” Steve whispered against Bucky's neck.

”You better. It took forever to make.”

  
  


–

  
  


Steve insisted they sleep with the blanket that night.

When Bucky had moved into Steve's Brooklyn apartment, Steve had offered him the spare bedroom. Bucky had called him dumb and moved into Steve's bedroom.

It was like being a kid again; sharing a bed with Bucky. Bucky didn't move as much as he used to. Between the war and what came after, Bucky barely moved at all. In the days leading up to the completion of the blanket, Bucky had got back into some of his old habits.

More and more often, Steve would wake up early, because he was being aggressively cuddled. Some mornings, Bucky even asked Steve if he was cold, while still half asleep. Steve was getting better at smiling instead of crying when Bucky remembered things, but sometimes he did both. Bucky was getting better at handling either.

Steve had pulled the blanket up to his chin and was rubbing the fibers between his fingers. Bucky was lying next to him, looking up at the ceiling.

”What color do you want your socks to be?”

Steve grinned.

 


End file.
